Dr Steve Salisbury is a palaeontologist from the university of Queensland who has studied dinosaur footprints around Broome and north along the coast of the Dampier Peninsula. He supported the successful bid to give the dinosaur trackway National Heritage listing in 2011 and says that while not all the footprints should be revealed to the public, it's time that many of them get the prominence they deserve.

"There are some really important ones, scientifically and culturally, that we don't really want to let everyone know where they are. But there are plenty of tracks that it would be fantastic to share them with people... Broome should embrace what it's got on its doorsteps because it's really special," says Dr Salisbury.

Around Broome and right along the 200 kilometre west coast of the Dampier Peninsula, dinosaur footprints of all shapes and sizes can be found if you know what you're looking for.

"At first it all does look like rock pools and rock platforms, and not much else. But most of the undulations and things that you see on the rock platforms around here are caused by dinosaurs," he says.

Dr Salisbury is working with traditional owners and the CSIRO to map the prints along the coast, to better understand the story they tell and what may be suitable to be promoted as a tourist attraction.

"One of the really special things about the tracks is that they're part of the creation mythology associated with Indigenous law and culture in this area; they're integrated into the songlines and sites along the coast," he says.

Kept quiet

It's thought that the first time non-Indigenous people noticed the extraordinary footprints preserved along Broome's coastline was in the 1930s. A Girl Guides group was camped at the old lighthouse keeper's house at Gantheaume Point when some of the girls "discovered" the unmistakable three-toed prints made by a Tyrannosaurus-type, theropod dinosaur.

The prints became an unofficial curio of Broome and part of the tourist's itinerary, along with pearls, camels, beaches and mudflats. While scientists did start taking a closer look, little was revealed to the public, especially after prints around Broome were cut out of the rock and stolen.

The result is that while the existence of Broome's dinosaur footprints are reasonably well known, their full extent has been largely kept quiet. But Dr Salisbury thinks that Broome should now be put on the map as one of the best places in the world to see the signs of past giants.

"We saw some today that were over 1.7 metres long...you could sit in them and have a bath if you wanted... Some of the biggest animals to have ever walked the planet walked the Kimberley coast, and they walked around Broome," he says.

Ancient story

The dinosaur footprints tell a story about North Western Australia when it was populated by very different animals.

"All these tracks and the rock they're in are about 130 million years old. Back then this was part of a big river plain, probably a delta system flowing from the north, probably to the south, with dinosaurs walking all over it," Dr Salisbury says.

It's hoped that by digitally mapping footprints across the landscape, the habits of animals that lived over a hundred million years ago will be revealed.

"Some of them look like they're on a mission; they're definitely heading somewhere. Other ones look like they're lost, and they're wandering around in circles... We've got a record of what they were doing and it's a hundred and thirty million years old, so it's pretty special," says Dr Salisbury.

Dr Salisbury hopes that the growing understanding of Broome's dinosaurs will capture the imaginations of the public and more people will get to know the footprints of sauropods, ornithopods, theropods and the story they tell.

"If you could go back in time and look at the Broome area, you would have seen all these different types of dinosaurs wandering around; it would have been really special. It's your own Cretaceous Park, on your doorstep."